It started with a finish line at 5K, now a Montreal running group is eyeing a marathon.

Comparing walkers to runners is like comparing Barry Manilow to the Rolling Stones. One gets all the respect and the other ... well, not so much.

But a new study out of the University of California, Berkeley, has given walkers a much-needed boost in respect, not to mention added validation that walking is bona fide exercise.

The study, which examined the health outcomes of 33,000 runners and 16,000 walkers over six years, discovered that despite the difference in exercise intensity, both walking and running offered similar reductions in risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

The results fly in the face of the assumption that runners are healthier than walkers, which is what many previous studies have indicated. The trouble with those results, say the authors of the Berkeley study, is that they compared the two modes of exercise based on time, not distance.

When the health benefits of running and walking the same distance were compared, the results accrued were similar. But when the health benefits of running and walking the same length of time were evaluated, the walkers fell short.

“The superiority of vigorous over moderate exercise, in some studies, may simply reflect the fact that more calories can be expended per minute of activity with vigorous exercise. Consequently, when exercise is compared by time spent in activity, vigorous exercise seems more beneficial.”

This is an important distinction, especially since most health-based exercise recommendations are prescribed by time, as in 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, and not distance. It is the contention of the Berkeley team that distance may be a better measure of the long-term benefits in more than just running and walking.

“Most epidemiological studies estimate exercise dose by time and intensity, which our analyses (finds) would substantially underestimate the true health benefits of physical activity,” say the authors of the Berkeley study.

Before walkers can rejoice, however, it’s important to understand that to get the same benefits as runners, walkers need to budget more time for their workouts. It takes longer to walk a given distance than it does to run, so walkers need to pick up the pace or put in more time.

Therein lies the kicker in this good-news story. The added length of time it takes for walkers to achieve the same health benefits as runners is no minor detail, because most people claim lack of time as their No. 1 barrier to meeting the recommended amount of exercise needed to benefit health. And according to the Berkeley research team, walkers lagged behind runners when it came to meeting or exceeding those guidelines.

“Specifically, there were substantially more walkers whose walking was at or below the (recommended health) guideline levels than runners whose running was at or below the guidelines and substantially fewer walkers than runners whose walking or running exceeded the guideline levels by twofold, threefold and fourfold,” the Berkeley researchers state.

That important detail takes on even greater significance because the Berkeley study revealed that the more distance walkers and runners cover the more their risk of chronic disease is reduced.

So what does that mean practically for walkers who want the same health benefits as runners but without the bone-jarring, heart-pumping, oxygen-gasping side effects that come with speeding up a walk to a run?

Well, it means setting distance rather than time goals and then slowly working on improving the time it takes to cover that distance.

The first step is to start planning your workouts like a runner, even though you’re going to keep your pace squarely in the walking zone. How do you do that? Here are some tips on getting more distance out of your walking workout:

Map your route based on distance, not time, using 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10k (depending on your present level of fitness) as your goal.

Reorganize your workouts to include one long walk and one speedy walk per week.

Increase the pace of your arm swing to naturally increase your foot speed. Bend at the elbows, swinging the arms close to the body in a forward and back (not side to side) motion reaching the hands no higher than the sternum in front and your back pocket in the back.

Use fartleks (the Swedish word for speed play) as a way to gently introduce more speed to your walking workouts. Pick out a landmark (mailbox, street sign or distinctive house) in the distance and speed walk until you get there. Reduce your speed to a more comfortable pace for three minutes. Repeat gradually, working up to six to eight fartleks done in the middle of your walking workout.

Look after your feet by wearing lightweight, breathable and comfortable footwear with polyester (not cotton) socks designed to wick sweat and maintain their shape.

Use smartphone apps like RunKeeper, Runtasktic Pro and iRace Me to chart your distance and pace.

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